Islamic Environmental Stewardship: Nature and Science in the Light of Islamic Philosophy

The Proper Mindset

Regardless of the feats of modern science in “green” technologies and developments of sustainable methods of living, humanity shall continue to mistreat nature in one way or another until nature is properly seen for its sacred qualities. This step is integral for any lasting solution to the crisis. It, however, implies the need for other steps before it. Before individuals adopt a lastingly peaceful approach to nature as a sacred entity, they must first make their way to God.

In people’s realization of holiness, they realize the presence of the Holy. Before one can attribute sacredness to creation, one must recognize that all sacredness stems from the Creator. With this realization, individuals may see that all holiness within nature is but a mere reflection of God the Holy. Thus, in order to make a proper and lasting peace with nature, one must first make peace with the Lord.

By doing this, individuals make peace with their selves as servants of the Lord and with the rest of creation as servants of the Lord as well.

If the masses simply make peace with creation and not the Creator, they embark on what would inevitably be a short-lived journey. The very act of doing so is inherently oxymoronic. Through it, they would attribute sacred qualities to nature, but not recognize a source of such sacredness. Nonetheless, it has happened before and the journey was in fact short-lived. Had the Hippie movement of the 1960’s based their revolt on something more substantial than a love for trees, their original purpose of rebelling against modern day greed might have lived for more than just a decade or so. What is needed is the rooting of one’s self in devotion to the Creator and not to creation. The fault of the Hippie movement was that its enactors based it on “peace and love,”50 but not God the Loving, Who may have directed them into taking peace and love far past the short-term alone. Thus, the Hippie movement proved nothing more than a phase. This is evident today; not just in the ridicule of hippies in popular culture, but more so in the continued destructive practices of the very corporate world that hippies protested against. Therefore, a making of peace with God the Sustainer is needed in order to achieve a sustaining peace with nature.